Labour's plans to save households over £1bn a year on energy bills – Rebecca Long-Bailey
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The next Labour government will save 4 million households at least
£270 per year by funding local authorities to deliver ‘street by
street’ home insulation schemes. Through an investment of
£2.3bn per year to provide financial support for households to
insulate their homes, and for local authorities to drive take up
and delivery of insulation schemes, the next Labour government will
drastically improve energy efficiency, bringing 4 million homes up
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The next Labour government will save 4 million households at least £270 per year by funding local authorities to deliver ‘street by street’ home insulation schemes.
Through an investment of £2.3bn per year to provide financial support for households to insulate their homes, and for local authorities to drive take up and delivery of insulation schemes, the next Labour government will drastically improve energy efficiency, bringing 4 million homes up to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) C by the end of a parliamentary term.
Labour’s plans include fully covering the cost of insulation for low income homeowners and all social housing, which will particularly benefit older people living in fuel poverty and pensioners on low incomes struggling to cover the cost of skyrocketing energy bills.
One in ten UK households are living in fuel poverty, one in five of which are pensioners; and at least £1 for every £4 spent on heating UK homes is wasted due to poor insulation. Age UK has previously estimated that cold homes cost the NHS in England £1.36 billion a year.
Labour will also tighten regulation of privately rented homes, blocking poorly insulated homes from being rented out.
Labour’s plan will:
· Reduce the cost of domestic energy bills for four million households – with a saving of at least £270 per year for affected households. · Improve the health and wellbeing of families, reducing costs to the NHS · Create new skilled jobs · Reduce carbon emissions
The funds will be targeted at low income homeowners, social rented homes and rental properties occupied by low income tenants by providing:
· Grants to low income households · Funding the upgrade of council homes and housing association homes · Zero interest loans to “able to pay” homes (owner occupier and landlords) to make upgrades
Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, said:
“Our ambitious insulation plan will see the next Labour government take real action against fuel poverty, making homes cheaper to heat, improving people’s health by improving our housing, creating new jobs and reducing carbon emissions.
“This is part of our plan to fix our broken energy system by capping energy bills and radically reform our broken energy market. By creating publicly owned, locally accountable energy companies and cooperatives to rival existing private energy suppliers this will make a real difference to people’s lives”
Ends
Notes to editors:
· Frontier Economics, Affordable Warmth, Clean Growth (2017), Annex A. Definition of ‘low income’ and ‘able to pay’ is as used in that report: households are defined as low income where their income in below 60% of median income after housing costs and energy costs are taken into account.
· As part our commitment to cutting energy bills, fuel poverty and winter deaths and improving housing standards we are making it a priority to insulate 4 million homes in the first term of a Labour government – a huge increase on current insulation rates. This is part of our commitment to raise all low income homes to EPC C by 2030 and an average of all homes in Britain to EPC C by 2035. Labour will deliver on our commitments by funding local authorities to take a lead in organising and delivering area based, ‘street by street’ insulation schemes.
· As this an infrastructure priority we are going to fund this from our National Transformation Fund, announced in Labour’s 2017 Manifesto. Costs for the first five years will be £11.5 billion: 2.3 billion per annum until 2030 and then £1 billion per annum from 2030 till 2035.
· Reduce the cost of domestic energy bills for 4 million households by at least £270 per year. This estimate is based on the Government’s own figures, which find that ‘the annual running cost of a Band C rated home are £270 lower than the average Band D rated home’https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/700496/clean-growth-strategy-correction-april-2018.pdf
· Labour will make financial support available to all households to insulate their homes, in line with ability to pay, though the following mechanisms: o Fully funding the costs of bringing properties up to EPC C for low income households in owner-occupation o Fully funding the costs of bringing properties up to EPC C for all social housing o Providing a 33% subsidy to landlords with low income tenants o Providing interest free loans to “able to pay” households in owner-occupation and landlords of “able to pay tenants”
· Labour will also raise the regulatory floor so that, by 2035, homes below EPC C cannot be rented out.
· Low income households are more likely to be in fuel poverty. By targeting support at low income households, we will significantly reduce fuel poverty. Households are defined as low income where their income is below 60% of median income after housing costs and energy costs are taken into account https://www.frontier-economics.com/documents/2017/09/affordable-warmth-clean-growth.pdf
· According to the House of Commons library, “It is estimated that in 2015 there were 483,000 households in fuel poverty in England where the household reference person (the individual the household characteristics are based on) was retired. This represents 8% of all households where the household reference person (HRP) is retired. Fuel poor households where the HRP is retired account for 21% of all fuel poor households in England. Source: BEIS, Fuel poverty detailed tables 2017, table 20 and 27
· The Government has a poor record on insulating homes. According to the House of Commons library, between the end of April 2013 and the end of December 2017 around 1.5 million homes have been insulated with either cavity wall insulation, loft insulation greater/equal to 125mm or solid wall insulation under Government schemes (measures delivered through CERT, CESP (mitigation actions), Warm Front, ECO and the Green Deal).
· In its latest consultation on the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) the government appear to further downgrade their ambition, for example, from 21,000 solid wall insulations per year to 17,000 solid wall equivalent.
Source: Consultation on ECO 2018-2022, March 2018 – see consultation and impact assessment, https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/energy-company-obligation-eco3-2018-to-2022
· University of Exeter researchers have said this will take 400 years to insulate all homes that need solid wall insulation, with other reports pointing out that household efficiency installations plummet 80% after Government cuts.
Source: University of Exeter researchers quoted in the Daily Telegraph, April 8th 2018 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/04/08/government-cools-energy-efficiency-ambition-400-years/
· CCC, An independent assessment of the UK’s Clean Growth Strategy, January 2018
· One of the reasons for this poor record is over-reliance on energy companies and market mechanisms to encourage households to insulate their properties. This has led to low take up and the Government falling well short of their targets. Under Labour’s plans, local authorities will be supported to proactively inform households of the financial support we are making available for insulation and encourage them to take it up, and then to deliver the works on a house-by-house, street-by-street basis. The experience of Kirklees, where a similar scheme has been adopted, is that this approach dramatically increases take up. http://uir.ulster.ac.uk/19116/1/KIRKLEES_PROJECT_and_COST_BENEFIT_REPORT.pdf
· It has been previously estimated that because of poor insulation at least £1 for every £4 spent on heating UK homes is wasted.
Source: Friends of the Earth, Cold Homes, Health, Carbon Emissions and Fuel Poverty, 2011 https://friendsoftheearth.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/cold_homes_facts.pdf
· It has been estimated that for every £1 spent on reducing fuel poverty 42p is expected in annual NHS savings, and Age UK have previously estimated that cold homes cost the NHS in England £1.36 billion a year.
(1) Source: UKGBC, Regeneration and Retrofit, Task Group Report, October 2017, page ii quoting the NHS Chief Medical Officer Annual Report 2009 http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130105021742/http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/AnnualReports/DH_113912
(2) Source: Age UK, November 2012, https://www.ageuk.org.uk/latest-news/archive/cold-homes-cost-nhs-1-point-36-billion/
· NEA research showing 32,000 winter deaths http://www.nea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/E3G-NEA-Cold-homes-and-excess-winter-deaths.pdf
· UK has sixth-highest rate of excess winter deaths in Europe - 23 February 2018 |